AuthorTopic: The right time to make a game?  (Read 8927 times)

Offline Terley

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The right time to make a game?

on: December 30, 2006, 09:08:52 pm
There's always someone atempting to make a game of some sort, whether successful or not, It's happening everywhere I look. But as Im currently trying to better myself in order to make a game im starting to wonder, when is the best time to make a game??

I don't claim to be a great pixeler, but I do hope to learn as much as possible because I know that some day whether it be years from now I may have an urge to at least be a part of doing some concept art or even do something more, you see I really want to be a cartoon animator (not computer animation, the actual hand drawn side of animation, how it's supposed to be done.), my dream is to work for disney or even something more, but as I am, im trying to be a great illustrator so I see pixel art as an opportunity to expand my knowledge and experience..

I have in the past atempted, with the help of my older brother who is 25, he could easily code a game but I found it was the lack of quality in the Graphics and my lack of experience that subsiquently stopped the project..

What I want to know is, how do you know you're good enough to make a game? Im guessing you're best starting small, with short easy games.. Not taking on a massive project first time round because it give you room to learn and become used to the stages in game design..

On another forum there's currently someone trying to re-create Kingdom of Hearts, and it's really embarresing to know how he's going about it, I feel sorry for the guy cus you know he won't get very far and if he somehow does, how bad the result will be.. I know it's all about learning by doing but you should improve as an artist first, right?

Please tell me what you think because I do think I have the experience to make a 'small' game, it may not be as advanced as some people would like but, a game it would be.. And you can only start from square one. How good do you have to be?
I've not got anything interesting to type here..

Offline sharprm

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #1 on: December 31, 2006, 12:33:59 am
I use Gamemaker and have made a few games. I recommend you start on really simple games and then move to more complicated ones.
The simpler it is the more likely you'll finish it. Start remaking frogger, that took me about 2 days, then do a space shooter, they are
easy (this took me about a week: http://www.64digits.com/download.php?name=pencilcasegame.zip&id=7593). Stay away
from platformers, so much programming, this took more than a year and still isn't finished : http://www.64digits.com/download.php?name=AztecGold1.4.zip&id=8184). Sorry about the shameless promotion.

The best time to start would be now, becuase with each game you will improve your ability to program and plan things.
Modern artists are told that they must create something totally original-or risk being called "derivative".They've been indoctrinated with the concept that bad=good.The effect is always the same: Meaningless primitivism
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/Philosophy/phi

Offline AdamTierney

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #2 on: December 31, 2006, 12:46:33 am
"What I want to know is, how do you know you're good enough to make a game?"

As soon as you feel like making one, make it! The more projects you have under your belt, the better you'll be at game creation.

"Im guessing you're best starting small, with short easy games."

Yes!!! You wouldn't believe how many people fail to think of that. Even if you're an RPG nut, start with a puzzle game or maybe one small aspect of an RPG game. Starting big almost never works out.

Good luck!

Offline Terley

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #3 on: December 31, 2006, 01:41:13 am
thanks you've satisfied my worries  ;) I think I may do something simple or just design a single level platformer to see how it goes.

im also wondering what you guys think about Game makers, rpg makers or wtever ya call em.. programs that basically do the work for ya and all you have to do is make graphics and tell em what you want to happen. I personally think you should do the programing yourself, or at least have your programming written by someone..

I've done mockups for a few games mostly platformers I'll post some soon when I get more done, plus a lot is roamin miles away on another pc  :-[  (moved out with my mom and bro).. I think I'll take your advice and do something simple like a puzzle game before hand. thanks.
I've not got anything interesting to type here..

Offline Wolverine

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #4 on: December 31, 2006, 01:46:13 am
im also wondering what you guys think about Game makers, rpg makers or wtever ya call em.. programs that basically do the work for ya and all you have to do is make graphics and tell em what you want to happen. I personally think you should do the programing yourself, or at least have your programming written by someone..

If Game Maker did everything for me, I'd have a hundred games out by now...  As it is I'm doing mostly the GML scripting stuff which is very much like programming and it's quite tricky for my tiny lil mind.
keep on moving, lil dude...

Offline .TakaM

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #5 on: December 31, 2006, 03:35:46 am
I think once you reach the point you cant be bothered waiting for developers to make the game you have in mind, and you're confident you wont embarrass yourself with an outcome other than completeting it- go for it.
infact, if you're really lazy (like me) you could make a lot of graphics and decide on how you want them all to work, then just sign up at some coding community, because theres always someone looking for an artist
Life without knowledge is death in disguise

Offline AdamTierney

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #6 on: December 31, 2006, 08:49:38 am
Game makers are an excellent way for artists (or people without extensive programming knowledge) to make fun games. Check out Streambolt by Gustav Kilman or Noitu Love by Joakim Sandberg for some really fun and polished game-maker games from pixel artists.

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #7 on: December 31, 2006, 09:42:06 am
takam: would you care to send links of some of these programming forums?

Offline MoD

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #8 on: December 31, 2006, 10:10:23 pm
I think it's a good idea to start making games as soon as you want to make a game. But What a lot of people new to game design come across is a lack of planning. Even if you think you know exactly how the game should be, open notepad and just make an outline, detailing how stuff should look, how it interacts with the player, and the storyline. Once you do that you can move on to writing the engine in the program of your choice. Game Maker is great to start with because it has a nice programming language that teaches basic programming concepts, but once you want to get into making more serious games, BlitzMAX works a lot better. Unfortunately this is because it's a lower-level language, meaning that it trades ease of creation for game speed and ability to do more with the system.

@sharprm: In Game Maker, platformers are definitely a lot harder than shmups and simple frogger clones, mostly due to the collision detection and everything with gravity. But RPGs are generally even worse, because the player is switching between battle mode and the menu and the overworld and other things, each with its own interface etc. And on top of that there's storyline and cutscenes. How I hate making RPGs.

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #9 on: January 01, 2007, 01:40:10 am
heh when I read the title I thought "Are we making a game like they are at PJ?" Anyway just posting my thoguhts cuz i got nuttin else to do, well its 20 to 2 in the orning, time for bed :yay:

Offline jmgandalf

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #10 on: January 02, 2007, 03:17:22 pm
Well, from my experience, it's better to make games in teams, since almost nobody by his own can master all the aspects the game making involves p.e. design, spriting, music and sfx.

There's a little community of game makers that i frequent, www.gmclans.com , and what we do is make games in teams, named clans. We have all kind of skilled people there, from designers to musicians, including programmers and pixellers of course.

Sorry if this sound like a promotion, but that is the only place i known that really can help you to get into gamemaker.

You can try to make games alone though, just do what we said, start with smaller projects, and document yourself in every aspects of the Game Design.

Good luck with your search :)

Offline Willows

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #11 on: January 26, 2007, 09:34:46 am
I've attacked GameMaker on and off for a few years, now. I'm still terrible at the programming aspect of it, but I can do enough to make most things function. Buggy as hell, but function. Barely.

I decided to have another swing at making a game again (You say simple, I think platformer) and an idea struck me. Here I am, making graphics without any programming. What are the chances that a programmer has made an engine without any graphics? A few quick minutes in google, and sure enough, there are a couple decent, pre-programmed platformer engines built for and on GameMaker. Most of the people that have made these simply ask that you stick their name in the credits. I, for one, don't actually plan to finish the game, but simply to have a fair exuse to attempt to put some things together.

These engines go into fair detail. The one I have is essentially a super mario clone. You can go up and down slopes without skipping, you can run and "fly" like in mario, jump on enemies' heads, stand on a moving platform, get pushed by a moving platform, disrupt the path of a moving platform etc etc etc. The code has notes in it "// do not edit this" or "// change these variables to make the character jump higher" and isn't that hard to get working correctly. Find an engine that has the basics of what you want to accomplish, and make a simple platformer, if you want.

I myself have tried working with a couple ambitious people (volunteer) on their game projects. Even though the vast majority of these aren't completed (I've one half-success out of a good 10 attempts) they do provide you with further experience. Keep trying, and remember that one small success is much better than a huge failure.

Offline Luzeke

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #12 on: January 27, 2007, 02:59:58 am
Is this the poor soul you were talking about who's attempting to recreate Kingdom Hearts?
http://create-games.com/preview.asp?id=2811

I agree. If you feel that you want to make a game, that's the right time to start. The hard part is holding that feeling that made you wanna make a game throughout the whole process (building the engine, creating the content, etc). A good start is to write down everything that makes the game appealing to you on an A4 paper, fill that paper. What I do is I take an A4 and fill it with sketches of the game. Only stuff that can't be put down in a sketch is written down. Mostly because my sketches jolts my brain to search for the things I thought about the game better than lines of text (might just be an individual thing though, in the end everybody has their own way of doing stuff).

I use Multimedia Fusion 2 (which predecessor was used to make Streambolt & Noitu Love ;D) to create my games. I'm not too fond of Gamemaker, but since it's free you should probably check it out. If you feel like being really serious and putting money into investing in a game creation program I'd recommend two: Multimedia Fusion 2 (of course) and Torque 2D Game Builder. They cost about the same for standard licenses.

To answer your question "how do you know you're good enough to make a game?"

You don't, you find out!  ;)

Offline dragonrc

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #13 on: January 28, 2007, 09:42:41 am
I also use gamemaker, I like it but its pretty hard to make a good bugless game. I agree, stay away from platform games.
There are many people who want to make a rpg, they go sprite all kinds of stuff, programm the whole story. But then they notice the impossibleness of the inventory (ooh I hate that evil inventory) and the battle system and stop making the game.

edit:
In gamemaker, variables are your friends

Offline Cow

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Re: The right time to make a game?

Reply #14 on: January 28, 2007, 06:51:13 pm
Quote
Buggy as hell, but function. Barely.
Don't blame the program for your problems. Game Maker isn't 'buggy', people just expect it to make the game for them. :ouch:

effort * skill = awesomeness of game